Ash Walker
by Nave Ninja
Summary: When the world lays dying, its winds like labored breaths, its ground cracked and bleeding, its skies as bleak and grey as a man upon his death bed, I walk. When the triumphs of humanity fall, when our greatest technologies fail, when the worst of our nightmares becomes a reality, I walk. When all that is left of our cities, our monuments, our hopes and dreams is only ash, I walk.


Every step I take brings me atop dead bodies, buried by the ash. Every breath is forced, labored. Every movement is uncomfortable, but that is a small price to pay for my survival. In my hands, I tightly grip my weapon, my support, my savior. Without it I would be dead, this I know. Like the sword of Arthur, or the bow of Paris, my weapon is what I am defined by. It is what I call myself.

I am the Ash Walker.

I went by a normal name, once, before the ash fell. I can't say I ever much identified with it, which is why I abandoned it when I learned I was alone, the only survivor in my homeland. With nobody else to call me by that name, I left it behind, like the ash leaves behind so many dead bodies, burying them under mounds of the gray dust.

So now I am the Ash Walker, for that is all I do. I walk the lands, going wherever I want. I live a life of freedom, but not even I can abide by that lie. I am trapped by the ash, for it obscures my vision and hampers my movement. Only when I am inside, behind closed doors and secure windows, am I permitted truly free movement. Taking off my mask and my suit is relieving. I mean, it gets hot and sweaty in that thing, but I can't stay that way for long. Long ago, I made a few rules to live by when it comes to taking off the suit: Only to eat, only to sleep, and only where the air is clean. Not too many places are, but places where the wind can't reach, like a basement or an attic, are usually okay. It's the wind, you see, that keeps the ash going, that keeps making the ash fall like rain. The wind picks it up and carries it off.

And I'm pretty lucky, I know that much. I don't know what exact circumstances led to my survival of the initial falling of the ash. The best excuse I can come up with is that I was in the right place at the right time. A filtering gas mask and full-body suit, like the ones firefighters wear, were on hand and available. It wasn't hard to get them. Chaos and panic had already swept through the town. Looting, pillaging and crime... true triumphs of the indomitable human spirit. A shining example of how even the most civilized culture can go to hell at a moment's notice.

You take people out of their comfort zone, you put them in the dark, and you scare the shit out of them, and you'll see some pretty interesting results. I had observed this underlying behavior all my life, in literature, films, and so on. I knew what was going to happen to most of the people. I wasn't about to let that happen to me.

I took the suit, and the mask. They were both bulky, uncomfortable, but when I stepped out into the windy, gray storm, they kept me alive. The ash fogged up my mask's goggles, obscuring my vision. This still happens, so I learned to carry a rag to wipe them off when I am outside.

I have a pole, my walking pole, which I call, like myself, an ash walker. I found it while I was walking through the remains of my former hometown. It is a metal pole, about a meter in length. There is a grip on one end, and a spike on the other. Below the spike, just up the shaft by about five inches, is a metal circle. When implanted into the ash, it gains a hold by compressing the ash beneath it. With my ash walker, I have never stumbled nor faltered in my sojourn across the gray wastes.

I don't have anything else to do other than survive. I break windows and doors of buildings to search them for food, or shelter for the night. While it is difficult to see in the daytime, it is impossible to see at night. There is no point in walking during those hours, and being human, I require sleep. So sleep I do. Sometimes it's hard to find a good bed, but as I don't take off the suit, sleeping on old couches and even sleeping sitting up isn't all that bad. It's nice to get out of the suit when I can, but only if the air is clean. Which is rare in itself.

Sometimes the food is still good in a refrigerator, though most of the time it is not. I never carry food with me, as the ash would simply corrupt its freshness and make it terrible to taste. It is a difficult, sometimes starving task to find food. I can recall one time when I searched every house in a neighborhood, ten in all, and only the very last one had a box of cereal inside.

There are bonuses, though. It's given me a lot of time to think. I think way too much; perhaps it's the result of not having to talk with anybody. I overanalyze things, overcomplicate things, I just go flat-out overboard on too much. I remember one time when I wanted to break a window to get inside a place I thought would have food. Instead of simply using my ash walker, as I usually do, I got bored of the routine and wanted to mix it up. So instead, I threw rocks at the window until it smashed. It wasn't too hard, and it occupied some of my time and reminded me of skipping rocks on a lake like I used to at a cabin my family once owned, way up north.

Speaking of thinking, I can't help but ponder the fate of the rest of humanity. How far will this ashcloud go? How far has it gone already? Has it covered the whole world? How many have died or become corrupted with the ash by breathing it in? More importantly, at least to me, how many survived? And are there others like me, who walk the ruined Earth with nothing but a suit, a mask, and a pole? How many then, I wonder, are just like me?

Not all survivors would be just like me, after all. Maybe some are surviving in shelters. Large, underground bunkers, maybe built by the governments or militaries of the former world. I know that important people, like the president or rich company CEO's have survived. They've certainly got the money to hoard as much food as possible and hunker down, waiting for the end of the world to go away. All of them are rather foolish, really. If you ask me, it's only a matter of time until the food runs out, people get in, or your life support fails. The human race is not dead, but dying. It doesn't matter how hard you try or how long you go, eventually the reaper is going to catch up to you. It's funny how we all deny inevitability like this, hiding behind walls and dollar bills, pointless pleasures in a dead or dying world. I know that all humans are going to die.

I know that I'm going to die.

And I've made my peace with this, yet I refuse to die right now. I can't bring myself to simply strip off my suit, lay down in the smoke and accept it. Sometimes I think about why I continue this miserable life, this life of hardship and defiance. I had always been defiant, certainly. Confident, standing up to those who oppose me, a real rebel, as it were. But that was my former life, and this life is different. This is nothing like lying to your boss, or refusing to go to work at all, or breaking the establishment and fighting "the Man" like we all like to think we do. This is defiance in the face of death itself, laughing at the specter of the grim reaper. How long can I keep this up? Months? Weeks? Days? How long until the ash I tread on and leave behind catches up with me?

Often, I brush those thoughts aside to simply continue existing. As long as one human walks the Earth, the species will survive. I have to admit, I both love and hate the idea of being the last human alive. Being the last justifies my actions, yet also carries a grim reminder of what will come when the ash finally overwhelms me.

Like most other depressing thoughts, I fling them aside to continue walking. I always say to myself that I'll deal with them later, when I'm not walking. But I'm always walking, always walking, and staying free and clear of the ash that has killed people. It's not that I avoid the ash, that would be impossible. I simply refer to the fact that the ash has never touched me like it has other people, especially my face. I love my mask, I really do. Without it, I'd have been corrupted by the ash long ago, lost to it. So I treat it lovingly, like a pet. More like a second face, more valuable than the first. It's important. I keep it clean.

Once more, I think myself fortunate for having the mask. I can't help but think about people who never had one like mine. I am, naturally, saddened by the loss of so many people. I didn't know all of them, so it's not so bad, really. I had a hard time dealing with the loss of my family and friends, sure. I spent some time looking for them, going to their homes, the schools, restaurants, workplaces, various places I thought they'd be. Nobody was there, though. Nobody. I don't like to throw around the word extinction, but this certainly could be the apocalypse that so many religions and other things have seen coming for a while now.

I was never too big on religion myself. Never really made time for it, and life went on normal without it. I also didn't have much time for friends, even though I hung out with people. I don't think I really liked them too much. You ever get that feeling that you're just supposed to socialize with people so you don't look like an outcast? The kind of guy people tell their kids not to talk to, and generally avoid? I know I wasn't that guy. And even if I was, I'm not now. That's all that really matters.

I have dreams at night. It seems pointless to dream in days like this, yet still they come. I wouldn't call them nightmares, but they are frightening. Or at least, I know they should be frightening, like how sometimes you don't find a horror movie very horrifying, yet people can tell you all about how much it made them shake with pure terror. In my supposedly scary dreams, I see images, fire mostly. People burning. Then, the ash overcomes them like a tornado, whirling and destroying everything in its path. I know why I have these dreams, and to be honest, they annoy the crap out of me. I wish they would go away. Yet, like the ash, they never leave me. I tolerate them both.

Every dream is different, at least I believe so. I see different people, people I don't know or have ever seen before. New locations, some of them recognizable. Cities I know about, but have never been to: New York, Paris, London, all manner of places.

All of them, destroyed in my dreams. The people, too. Sometimes they live... but mostly they die. What a shame.

Ever read about the Dust Bowl? Happened in the thirties. The soil got so dry and dusty that it just got picked up by the wind and flown all across the States, ending up in the Atlantic ocean. Sometimes I think that maybe the whole world is like that right now, the same ash being carried on a complex system of winds all over the globe. I once entertained a fantasy in my head about a small flake of ash that never actually touched the ground. Instead, it simply flew all around the world, being carried by the winds like a shred of paper. That was a fun thought. I like to reminisce about things I enjoy, which is why I do it so often. I used to like shaving a lot, for example. Don't have time for it anymore, and the chin scruff I'm forming is a little irritating. I like to think about when my chin was recently shaven, smooth yet slightly coarse like a peach. I liked peaches a lot. I miss peaches.

I don't know if I've been driven mad by all of this yet. I think I'm not crazy, mostly because I'm able to think about my sanity and where it's at on a scale of insanity by comparing how sane I feel to really insane people I knew from before or had read about. I guess I feel more alone than anything else, but that's to be expected. I hated being alone before, and I hate it now. I wouldn't mind a companion, a fellow human or even a dog. But they're all dead, and there's not much I can do about that, can I? Except keep walking, of course, with my ash walker in hand.

Besides, it would be another mouth to feed, another suit to clean, less space to have to myself. I don't consider myself greedy, but I already have a lack of vital resources for my own sustenance. Still... it'd be nice to have some company. Anything's better than the damned ashlungs I come across.

Sometimes they're outside, sometimes not. I don't know what the ash did to these people, but they're crazy. Compared to them, I'm the prime, perfect example of mental health. I make a hobby out of killing them, even the ones who run away. Chasing them down and using my ash walker to take their life is a fun, exhilarating activity. This also has the added benefit of providing a fun distraction from my normal routine, which can get pretty boring, pretty fast.

Sometimes they jump me in large groups, but so far I've always fought them off. Their grey skin, colored by the very ash they breathe, makes them hard to find. When they pop out of the mounds of ash and move to attack me, I often don't have long to think of a plan and counter-attack.

They're usually unarmed too, which is a bonus. I remember one coming at me with a knife after I had killed a few of them. I doubt these things have any higher brain functions left. It's like I'm doing them a favor, really. They don't want to be alive, living without a suit like mine. So I kill them.

Adrenaline fuels my body when I'm in combat mode, swinging and stabbing with my weapon. Through my mask, I can faintly hear their cries and moans, but I don't let their painful screams get to me. Like I said, I'm doing them a favor. They can't stop me, so it's more like cutting the grass. Grass gets too long, cut it. People breath in too much ash, kill them.

It's a beautifully simple cycle, really.

I remember one time I came across a car, half-buried by the ash. The front end was sticking out, so I broke the passenger seat window, unlocked the door and got inside. I sat there for a few minutes next to the dead driver. He had committed suicide. The gun was in his hands, clutched in a dead man's vice-like grip.

I felt sorry for the man. He had supplied himself well, the backseat was loaded with food and other supplies. None of it was any good now that I had broken the window and the ash had gotten inside the car, so that was a shame. Maybe he was lucky, I thought as I looked over at him. I didn't have to be the one to kill him, after all.

The ashlungs aren't that big of a problem. They pop up, and I kill them. Sometimes I stumble upon them, and I kill them. It's easy. Sometimes I think about who they were, before the ash. Normal people, going about their lives. But now that the ash has touched them, they're not people anymore. Just mindless animals. I sometimes see myself as a releaser of spirits, like I'm some kind of comic-book hero and I'm battling the lost souls of dead people, and in killing their chaotic mortal remnants I set them free.

It's fun to imagine, isn't it? When I hunt down the ashlungs, it's fun to think of them as zombies, and I'm a badass zombie killer like in the movies. These zombies aren't entirely zombie-like, but they'll work. It's not like real zombies are going to show up anytime soon, after all. So, when the ashlungs pop up, I have fun hunting them down and butchering them.

Butchering isn't a very good word. It makes me sound like a maniac killer, and I know I'm not. It's a simple fact! I know I'm not a maniac, because the ashlungs have been corrupted by the ash, and so I kill them. They become nothing but more bodies that will soon be covered up by the all-consuming ash anyway, so I'm just helping them along the path a little faster. It's charity, really.

I stand defiant in the face of the ash, because I refuse to die. I saw people choke and die from the ash, but that's because they probably had it coming. I sure didn't have anything coming to me, so that's why I survived. The others? Like I said, I feel bad for them. And in killing what's left of them, I feel better.

I remember one time I decided to take a subway tunnel. It seemed like a good idea, and it was, because down below there would be no wind to pick up the ash and carry it around. I had always wanted to walk along those tracks, and with nobody to stop me, that's what I did. It was dark, so I used a flashlight I always carry with me to light the way. The air in the tunnels was cleaner than above, but I didn't take off my mask quite yet. Instead I simply wiped off the goggles with my rag and kept walking. I knew I would like to take it off soon. It was sweaty and I never wanted to end up wearing it so long that it fuses to my head. I think I had heard about that happening to a guy once, long ago. Couldn't remember if it was true or not. Still, I wanted to remove it and relieve myself, just for a short time.

Before I entered the tunnels I paused to use the bathroom in the station. After all, I had to relieve myself, didn't I? The bathroom was rather clean, all things considered. I was pleasantly surprised by that fact. But when I went to wash my hands, the water was black. Black! I was amazed by that. Not even the water had escaped the ash's fury. Black water, like the river Styx itself had flown into all the water in the world.

The tunnel was very dark, and I finally took the liberty of taking my mask off. The tunnel was good to breath in, much better than I thought it would be. But then there was the smell. I hate the smell of the ash, it serves as a constant reminder of what burning worlds smell like. It's a nauseous smell, and it can drive a man mad if he smells too much of it. The smell of napalm in the morning is nicer than the smell of ash in the evening. So I put my mask back on after a while to keep the smell from getting to me.

After a while, I started to see a light in the tunnel. A fire! Sometimes I started fires to keep me warm. Maybe there was someone like me? I let my hopes get the better of me, and I ran forward.

Four figures sat around the fire, maskless. I got angry. Ashlungs weren't smart enough to build fires, so they must've killed someone like me and take his fire for their own warmth. Someone like me! I could've not been lonely anymore, but instead these damned ashlungs had to kill him! Or her! Or maybe them! What if there was a group of them? These ashlungs had killed them! That was all that was going through my mind, the retribution of those Ash Walkers that might not have even existed. At the time, I hardly cared. It was just another excuse to get to kill more of the ashlungs.

I charged at them, attacking them with my ash walker. They were surprised, and slow to respond. Rather easy fight, really. Just cause enough damage to each one to ensure that none of them get away, then finish them off one by one. You need to be methodical, if nothing else. The last one was crawling on the ground, bleeding heavily from a wound on his head. He was pitiful, so it was good that I had no pity to give.

I realized, walking up to him, that he was a kid. Just a little kid, no more than fifteen years old at the most. I could only imagine, in that moment, what that kid must have been like before the ash touched him and transformed him. Maybe he ran and laughed, maybe he had a girlfriend. Maybe played sports, was popular and got good grades. I would never know those things, because he wasn't human anymore.

Not really human, anyway.

I raised my ash walker, readying it for impalement into this tortured soul's brain. He looked up at me, tears making clear lines down his ashen face. Those tears gave me pause, just enough pause for the ashlung sneaking up behind me to stab me with some kind of axe. I think it was a fire axe, which would make it delightfully ironic when you think about it, given the previous nature of my suit.

I felt it connect solidly with my spine, possibly even severing it completely. It was the first time my suit had ever been punctured in such a way. The first and only, I might add. I fell to my knees, losing the ability to control my arms and legs. I remember staring wide-eyed into the ashlung kid I was about to kill. He looked just as surprised as I. His eyes, which were blue, a bright, shining blue, were locked on mine.

It grew dark.

The whole thing gets kinda fuzzy after that. I woke up outside of the tunnel, and my spine was just fine. So was my suit. So, I picked up my ash walker, which was laying not too far away, and I got up and continued walking. I didn't ask any questions, about my spine or the ashlungs that had attacked me, though later on I felt like I should have. I guess ash walking had become so natural to me that I just never thought twice about it.

So, now here I am. I don't come across any buildings anymore. Nor any cars, or ashlungs, or... anything, really. Save for the ash. The ash is still everywhere, swirling around and obscuring my vision, trapping me, containing me in my purgatory, suspending me for all eternity. I don't need to sleep, or eat, which is nice. It just leaves more time to walk through the ash.

And think, and remember, and regret, and cry. It's all I can really do now.

I am the Ash Walker. Am I the last human?

I hope I'm not. Humanity would have done better than that.

It had to.


End file.
